I’m CalMatters politics intern Jenna Petersonpinch-hitting for Lynn at the moment.
Just a few weeks in the past, I wrote a few invoice that might let California academics resolve when to name the police on a scholar. When the state Senate voted towards sending the invoice to Gov. Gavin Newsom within the legislative session’s closing days, I questioned what occurred.
Tensions round Meeting Invoice 2441 rose within the final couple of weeks earlier than lawmakers adjourned. The Senate Republican Caucus launched its personal evaluation of the invoice, which supporters stated included misinformation and worry mongering. A number of regulation enforcement companies had additionally voiced their issues about college and group security.
Senate GOP Chief Brian Jones of San Diego informed me he doesn’t imagine Republicans and regulation enforcement have been elevating unwarranted fears. “California voters and taxpayers are fed up with the homeless situation in California. They’re fed up with smash and grabs,” he stated. “They’re fed up with the retail theft and fed up with the crisis of fentanyl in our state.”
Shortly after the story’s publication, I discovered that the invoice had been amended so academics would nonetheless be required to name the police within the case of a scholar assaulting or threatening them.
“Because law enforcement lobbyists were spreading fear, we took that out just to make it that much easier for senators to feel comfortable with the bill,” Assemblymember Ash Kalrathe invoice’s creator and a San Jose Democrat, informed me final week.
So when the invoice bought to the Senate ground on Aug. 29, it solely referred to as for 2 modifications: Enable academics to resolve to name the police if a scholar possesses or makes use of managed substances, and not cost college students with against the law for “willful disturbance.”
However even with the modification, AB 2441 failed within the Senate by a vote of 20-14, with six senators — all Democrats — not voting. 5 different Democrats voted towards the invoice.
With a few of these senators voting for a extra expansive model of the invoice in 2022, some supporters say it may not be a coincidence that we’re in an election 12 months.
- Rachel Bhagwatlegislative advocate at ACLU California Motion, a invoice sponsor: “A lot of our legislators are up for reelection. Some of them are in tight races. Law enforcement is very influential at the Capitol and in Sacramento, and they’re influential in elections as well.”
As Bhagwat watched senators focus on the invoice, she was annoyed that they weren’t specializing in the invoice’s foremost aim of addressing the school-to-prison pipeline.
“I really wasn’t hearing the discourse centering around what’s best for students,” she stated. “I was hearing a lot of very distracting narratives that were muddying the situation.”
In the meantime, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 5 payments Tuesday that did make it to his desk, and so they have been all associated to synthetic intelligence.
AI and elections: Newsom OK’d three payments that focus on the usage of deepfakes in elections. Meeting Invoice 2839 permits judges to problem injunctions towards people who create or publish misleading AI content material, requiring that they pay damages or take down the content material. AB 2655 requires that, if a person reviews a deepfake, on-line platforms both label it or take away it from their website inside 72 hours. And AB 2355 requires political campaigns to reveal in the event that they use AI in promoting.
AI in Hollywood: Newsom additionally signed two payments to require contracts for the usage of actors’ and performers’ digital likenesses. AB 2602 requires performers to be professionally represented when negotiating their contract. AB 1836 makes it so corporations will need to have the consent of deceased performers’ estates earlier than utilizing an AI reproduction of their likeness.
And, sure, all 5 got here from the Meeting and Newsom saved to his file to date of not performing on Senate payments.
